Each month, Librairie Drawn & Quarterly invites a local author or artist to curate a shelf in the store. This March, we bring you recommendations from Laura Broadbent!

Besides being the new manager of Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, Laura Broadbent is the author of Oh There You Are I can't See You Is It Raining? (Invisible), Interviews (Metatron Press), and In on the Great Joke (Coach House books). She is the recipient of the national Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and two Canada Council grants for Emerging writers. Her work continues to be published widely both in print and online. Currently she's working on three new books at once, reading ten books at once, and dealing books full-time at Drawn and Quarterly.

All of Laura's picks will be 15% off for the month of February. Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll find on her shelf:

The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard

I remember when I first read Joe Brainard’s I Remember. I remember being totally delighted and wanting to do the same thing. I remember riding the metro in a foul mood and then reading some Joe and feeling much better; this is always his effect. J.B was a painter and a writer. Queer. Innocent and filthy, wise and true oddball, Joe Brainard gave us the original Nancy from the Nancy comics too where we find out important info like what Nancy would look like if she had a penis.

HOT OR NOT by Jessica Campbell

Finally someone asks the important questions. Now I know whether or not the great male beacons of our artistic canon were f*ckable. We all know this is what truly matters and is what makes art interesting. The cover of the book even comes with scratch-off thongs so you can see those dong-de-dong-dong-dongs. Bonus: Jessica used to work at D&Q. One of the funniest people I know, even for a girl.

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

I described the experience of this book as a giant squid leaping through the air and latching onto my face and not letting go for 188 pages. One of the most visceral experiences I’ve ever had reading. Her honesty hits the nervous system hard, like metal to teeth.

Another Country by James Baldwin

Like everything Baldwin wrote, this book is simply - as it is described - “stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at their most elemental and sublime.”

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin

A series of brilliant and passionate love letters to an unrequited love, also a woman. Even though the degree of her love has her in a state of total obsessional insanity, her mind remains luminously lucid in its deep philosophical insight and knowledge. After she wrote these letters she slit her neck with a kitchen knife.

Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector

This book makes no sense while at the same time making more than sense. It took me months to read this extremely slim specimen because each line or turn of thought was enough to send me into a revelry of thinking and writing. I would describe the reading experience as highly sensual - small bites make you go OhMyGodHolyShitWhoah

Heroines by Kate Zambreno

Did you know Lucia Joyce was institutionalised for throwing a chair? Ostensibly ‘about’ the wives of modernism and the silencing they suffered, it is much more than that. When I read this I had never felt more affirmed, finally, on a subject that had plagued my life: being opinionated, passionate and intense and being called crazy for it, that old and tired and boring moniker we still love to use for women with big creative brains combined with big ol’ feelings.

Syllabus by Lynda Barry

Keeping a notebook is my favourite thing and Lynda Barry takes it to the next level. A visually dazzling “syllabus” full of observations and creative prompts to encourage her student (you included) to slow down enough to be present and really see what’s there. A pen and paper go a long way. I return to this book too when I need to be cheered up (often).

Drawn and Quarterly: Twenty-five Years of Contemporary Cartooning, Comics, and Graphic Novels

I’m not sucking up with this choice. This was given to me as ‘required reading’ when I first started working here and it made me all the more proud to be part of Drawn and Quarterly, a publisher and it’s bookstore-offspring I already greatly admired. The book is full of gorgeous design as usual, stories about D&Q’s evolution, articles and interviews with artists, and tons of comics that together have contributed to an actual legacy.

Tokyo Digs a Garden by Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanake

I might be a bit biased for this one, since I went to high school with Jon-Erik and he was one of my first high school boyfriends and now he has co-created this gorgeously illustrated book about a boy named Tokyo, his cat Kevin and some magical seeds that grow like crazy, transforming a nature-less and toxic city into a beautiful monstrosity.